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Although I can imagine an amusing Red Shirt campaign, where characters try to survive despite hostile aliens *and* self-serving officers. Sure, when the Captain meets an alien, she's a scantily clad abundantly female humanoid who asks, "What is this thing you call ... love?" When one of the characters meets an alien, it's a giant slug that chews eyeballs.

A Red Shirt campaign is a great idea. Imagine Star Trek meets Paranoia. The bridge officers get all the glory, credit and survivable missions. You, the briefing officer hates you. Still, if you ever want to get out of here, you've got to constantly lick his boots.

Although I can imagine an amusing Red Shirt campaign, where characters try to survive despite hostile aliens *and* self-serving officers. Sure, when the Captain meets an alien, she's a scantily clad abundantly female humanoid who asks, "What is this thing you call ... love?" When one of the characters meets an alien, it's a giant slug that chews eyeballs.

Hey Frank,

What about an ALL REDSHIRTs PC setup. Where all of the PC's are fitted with the redshirts and have to try and survive each adventure... sort of sounds like Paranoia.

<edit> - Jeez, I read Frank's post and didn't read further, was just replying to him and well, ended up saying what Gary said later

A Red Shirt campaign is a great idea. Imagine Star Trek meets Paranoia. The bridge officers get all the glory, credit and survivable missions. You, the briefing officer hates you. Still, if you ever want to get out of here, you've got to constantly lick his boots.

Paranoia sprang to mind, as did the comic Goblins. ("This time could we maybe use some of the items in the poorly locked treasure chest?" "Now you're just talking crazy.") Although I think what would be funnier is if fate itself conspired against the characters. You're the extras, not the stars; bad things happen to you to create the illusion of danger to the actually important people.

The Captain could be standing *right* *in* *front* (to catch the best light) when the bloodsucking fog attacks. Miraculously, he dives entirely out the way, whereas you, executing the same dive, get a lungfull of fog.

Whenever you're in a brawl with the Klingons, you and your surviving teammates have concussions, broken bones, batleth wounds, and so forth. The Captain is invariably slightly grimy and winded, with a faint trail of blood from the left corner of his mouth. (Always the left, because that's his not-as-good side.)

The Bridge Officers upstage you at every turn, no matter what you try to do to be important. "Maybe if we seal the cave with our phasers," you comment, unheard. "What do we do, Captain?" shrills the bimbo of the week. "Aim your phasers above the cave mouth!" the Captain declares. "We'll *seal* *them* *in*!"

And always, always, when there are two doors, the Captain gets the lady, and you get the tiger.

Some of your bosses might be kind to you because deep down they know how long you have to live; others might be indifferent, because they see no point in getting attached. Upon your death, the Captain will shout his grief to the uncaring heavens, lamenting how Bill was too young to die, even though your name was Fred.

After all, to paraphrase Philip K. Dick, the ultimate in paranoia isn't when everyone is out to get you, it's when everything is out to get you.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)

By the way, a related idea to the Redshirts campaign is to play the aliens, those bug-eyed monsters who were happily minding their own business when the Earthmen started pushing them around. (Yes, I'm ripping off Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind.) For example:

You're the scout ship investigating these strange reports of a bipedal life form. Next thing you know, the natives are trying to repel the "invasion".

The First, Last, and Only War started when bipeds landed on one of your colonies and drilled into your caverns. When you went up to complain, they fired on you ... slaughtered nearly the entire hive. When you sent a mission to restrain these crazies, more of them showed up in their crappy starships. Despite your superior numbers and technology, the notion of "combat" is foreign to your kind, and repugnant; your people die in droves.

The Earthmen are slaughtering your people. Learning that their warriors are males (always stupid and excitable), you hit upon a desperate plan: venture deep into their territory, find the females -- always the most rational of the three sexes -- and explain the situation. The most sexually attractive of their females are undoubtedly the leaders, and luckily you've happened on one of their fertility idols, called a Baur-bii, so you know what to look for.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)

Well, I always say that the best settings are ones you make yourself, so I like my setting. It's based off an old Star Trek Voyager (in my opinion, the best season ever) video game, and it kind of grew from there. I've always liked the idea of the PC's as no different than "normal" soldiers, they take the same orders, fight the same enemies, and are part of the same squad structure (of course, because of their talent, they may be put into a special-ops squad, but they still take orders).

NOT S.W. or S.T. or B5

I would run in the Star*Drive setting first, because I loved the Alternity game system, and still grumble that the product line was cancelled for Star Wars. Star Fronties would be fun to bring to life again, as I had everything they produced for it except the figures. I will NOT run in a movie/tv setting because I don't like having to adhere to predefined ideas or events. I enjoyed STtNG and loved B5, just won't game in it.

I personally don't have one particular setting that is my favorite. I usually have a "favorite of the month". Right now that happens to be a homebrew modern campaign based off of Red Dawn. Some little tweaks here and there, but that's pretty much what my mind is set on right now. In the past, I've done Spycraft (1 and 2.0), A homebrew campaign based on a treasure hunting group, Robotech, and GI Joe. I've been thinking about doing a Transformers campaign also.

Moved thread

After some thought, I've moved this thread to "General Discussion". While it started off about d20 Modern settings, it's really general enough to apply to any generic/universal system.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)

My favorite setting (and probably my first GURPS campaign will be set in) is Starship Troopers. I'm not so much a fan of the RPG rules but the book and setting is ideal for me. I like settings where life is as we know it right now with just a sprinkle of "WHAT THE #*&%!". Growing up I had a pretty big fear of insects in general (mainly spiders) so the setting is quite satisfying as I can play a hero who saves the world from bugs . I plan to use GURPS and the entire BattleTech product line (CityTech, AeroTech, etc...) to create the adventure.

Just curious but isn't SLA Industries one of the more perfect examples of a Cyberpunk setting done right? If that is the case, how can Cyberpunk be your 2nd setting? Wouldn't SLA Industries fall perfectly into the Cyberpunk category?